At this year’s E3, I had the opportunity to sit down with THQ and Relic Entertainment for a look at the newest application of their Warhammer license, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. Announced just five days prior to the event, Space Marine is a new, action-RPG take on the brand, and will appeal to Warhammer fans differently than the existing strategy titles from Relic. Members of the press were only treated to a short video and Q & A session about the game, but a fair amount of information was divulged at the show.
The game appears to play similarly to large-scale battlefield action games such as Dynasty Warriors or Spartan: Total Warrior, and will allow players to control a single marine in the midst of massive conflicts between rival armies, mowing through enemies in a festival of chainsaw blades and machine guns. Although the team emphasized that players will play as just one space marine, they are making their best efforts to remain true to the source material, where marines operate in groups of five or ten. Players will work in AI-controlled squads of those sizes, or join other players in the game’s cooperative online multiplayer mode.
Through battle, which will include both melee and ranged combat, players will gain experience and level-up their characters over time. As in the tabletop games, this character development is a big focus in Space Marine, and players will have the opportunity to upgrade weaponry, armor, attributes, and abilities throughout the course of the game.
Relic is working closely with Games Workshop to develop the storyline in Space Marine, using the company’s existing lore to create a narrative that is heavy enough to drive the experience, but light enough to keep players focused on the action taking place on the battlefield. The main idea here is that the Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines) are at war, defending humanity against the Orks and quite possibly other races in the Warhammer fiction, although Relic has only announced the inclusion of the two initial armies.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is still "years away," but already looks very solid, as the action footage at E3 was running entirely on the in-game engine. GamerNode will continue to cover the game as it draws nearer to release.
